


'cause it's not peace we've found

by surviving_and_thriving



Series: birds of a feather [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Let them be Soft, M/M, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, These boys deserve nice things, dumb of ass, our boy really just, pure of heart, took the last syllable of his name and said, yeah that works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26380489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surviving_and_thriving/pseuds/surviving_and_thriving
Summary: sometimes, the name neil sounds a little too much like nathaniel
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: birds of a feather [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917226
Comments: 2
Kudos: 156





	'cause it's not peace we've found

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is a repost of something i posted on august 28th. i decided i didn't like the layout i was doing (grouping all my oneshots in one big work), so i'm going to separate them into individual works in a collection. that way, it's easier to find the ones that you want to read :)
> 
> on the downside, i have to find titles now. no one mock me for them, titles are stupid hard

Neil Josten is someone that Neil is proud to be. He had taken an identity, someone who was supposed to start and end as a nobody, as a no one, and he had shaped him into someone with substance. Neil Josten has keys to a dorm room, to a Court, to a home. Neil Josten has a life.

And Neil is proud of that fact.

But the fact still stands that when Neil took his current name, he thought it would be temporary, the way Alex or Chris or Stefen were temporary. His mother chose names carefully, common enough to blend in and be forgotten, but not common enough to be suspicious. Neil was supposed to be another name at the end of a list.

But the Foxes happened, and Andrew happened, and Neil became permanent.

So, yes, Neil is proud to be Neil Josten and he loves being Neil Josten, but on his bad days, the days when he can still feel Lola’s fingernails scraping up his arms, he can still feel his dad’s breath on his skin, and he can still hear his mom’s voice in the back of his head telling him to run, run, run, Neil sounds a little too close to Nathaniel.

His bad days come infrequently enough now that Neil doesn’t think that anyone has noticed; he doesn’t even think that Andrew has noticed. But one morning, he wakes up with a gasp before Kevin’s alarm has a chance to go off and he needs to run, his mother would kill him if she knew where he was.

He jerks off the bed, falling to the ground gracelessly, and scrambles to find his running shoes. Kevin grumbles at the noise, and it’s enough to bring Neil back to the present. He knows his mother is dead, and so is his father, but his skin still screams for him to run.

He finds his shoes and pulls them on, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, before spinning around to face Andrew. He’d felt Andrew’s eyes on him since he first fell out of bed, but he had needed time to school his expression to one that wouldn’t worry Andrew before he turned around.

They made eye contact, and Andrew raised an eyebrow, his face passive, but his eyes, illuminated by the fox-shaped night light Matt got him for his birthday, asked a silent question. It was a “are you okay?,” “what do you need?,” and “I'm here” all in one, and Neil was reminded all over again about how much he had to lose now.

He shook his head, mouthed an “I’m fine” towards Andrew, ignored the eye roll he got in response, and nodded his head towards the door, indicating the run he was about to go on.

Andrew, seemingly satisfied with his response, closes his eyes, and pulls his blankets back over his head.

Neil turns to leave the dorm, but before the door can click closed, Neil hears Andrew’s voice drift from the bedroom.

“Come back.”

Neil smiles the whole way through his run.

By the time the sun is rising, Neil feels more settled in his skin and he shoots a text to Kevin and Andrew, letting them know he’ll just meet them at the weight room.

When he gets to the weight room, he almost smiles when he sees that the Maserati is already parked outside. Andrew never makes an effort to get to weights early, a subject that is forever on Kevin’s nerves, so the fact that they’re here early meant that Andrew wanted to see him.

As he’s standing outside, shaking his head, he hears Matt’s truck pull up before he sees it. Matt, who is nowhere near being an early riser, blasts the worst music he can find on the drive from the Tower to wake up. It never did anything for Neil, too used to sleeping wherever, no matter the noise, but Matt swears by it and, since Nicky and Arron had moved in with him, they’ve started to swear by the method as well.

Neil turns to smile at the three boys who fall out of the car, groggily shaking their heads. Matt spots Neil in a heartbeat and his face breaks out in a smile.

“Neil!” he greets, happily, bounding over to meet him.

Hearing his name makes Neil’s stutter. Something about the sleep that still clings to Matt’s voice warps his name to sound like the name his father used to yell and it makes Neil fling up every defense he has.

Matt doesn’t notice, and neither do Aaron or Nicky, but Neil already knows that this will be a long practice.

The group of four make their way into the weight room and Neil immediately sidles up next to Andrew, needing his stability. Andrew raises an eyebrow, similar to this morning, but doesn’t ask.

As the rest of the team trickles in, Neil braces himself for the practice. He knows it won’t be as bad as this afternoon’s practice will be; no one will be calling out for him to catch a ball or to block a shot, but it’s his name. It’s kind of hard to avoid.

Wymack comes in and puts their sets up on the whiteboard and the team starts to make their way through the workout.

Neil flinches each time someone calls out his name and he can feel Andrew’s eyes boring a hole in the back of his head, but he can’t face it right now, because to face the problem would mean that he didn’t leave Nathaniel in Baltimore.

The Foxes pick up on the fact that something is off, but Neil shrugs off their concerns and thanks whatever god Renee prays to that the freshmen are stuck working on proper weights technique with Wymack for the beginning of the season so he doesn’t have to deal with them.

When it comes time to pair off for lifts, Neil, strangely, finds himself paired off with Aaron. Andrew had long since given up on workout, currently sprawled out on one of the benches with his eyes closed, flipping Kevin off, so Neil went with the only other person his size to spot.

Neil and Aaron, though better than they were the previous year, still had a rocky relationship, so Neil was fully ready to put up with taunting or total silence. To his surprise, he got neither.

He and Aaron talked about their classes, about exy, about the food from the cafeteria, about nothing at all. And Aaron never called him Neil. It was always Josten. Neil wasn’t stupid enough to think that Aaron had caught onto what was going on, Aaron probably only did it because he didn’t like Nei enough to use his first name, but he was thankful anyway.

Josten was so, so far from Wesninski that the frayed nerves in his brain couldn't even try to confuse the name.

When the workout ended, he and Aaron bumped fists, before heading their separate ways, Aaron to Matt’s truck and Neil to the Maserati.

Neil, Kevin, and Andrew piled into the car, Neil sinking back into the seat, relishing in the silence in the car. For once, Andrew didn’t blast his music, choosing instead to let Neil pull himself back together.

Kevin tried, multiple times, to get Neil to talk exy with him, but after the first time Neil flinched away from his name, Andrew started shutting him down.

Once they made it back to the dorm, Andrew pulled Neil away from their room, dragging him up to the roof.

The two of them sat in silence, making it through an entire cigarette, before Andrew turned towards Neil and, blowing his smoke in Neil’s face, gestured with his hand for Neil to explain.

Neil inhaled the smoke, letting it ground him, before talking.

“I woke up and I was Nathaniel. I know you told me to bury him, but, sometimes, he comes back.”

Andrew motioned for him to continue, knowing that that wasn’t the full story.

Neil sighed, running a hand down his face.

“In the morning, when everyone’s voices are all groggy and weighed down with sleep, Neil sounds a lot like Nathaniel. And normally, it’s fine.”

Andrew's eyes narrowed at his choice of words.

“Or, not fine,” Neil corrects, “I just don’t care about it usually because Neil is a different person than Nathaniel and it isn’t hard to remember that. But it was this morning.”

Andrew turns to face Neil.

“Yes or no?”

Neil nods, then when Andrew still doesn’t move, vocalizes his answer.

Andrew wraps his hands around Neil’s neck, bringing them eye-to-eye.

“You aren’t Nathaniel. Despite what you may think, Nathaniel is dead and buried in Baltimore. Neil Josten is the starting striker for the Palmetto State Foxes. Abram is sitting next to me. When you can’t be Neil, be Abram.”

Andrew presses his mouth against Neil’s and, for the first time all morning, Neil can feel himself sink back into being Neil, and smiles into their kiss.


End file.
